Hands
by Andrea Weiling
Summary: Um, somewhat SumiWaya - not really, just Waya thinking about Isumi during the time he left the Insei program.


Hands  
  
If anybody ever took the time to watch Shinichiro Isumi for a while, they would notice one thing that set him very apart from anybody else: his hands.  
  
He didn't like to touch other people. Other people would hand objects to him, but he would avoid directly touching their hands; sometimes, if he did, he would immediately wipe the object once it was in his possession and out of the other person's sight - a rather rude action, but it sufficed to say that he didn't like touching anything that anybody else had touched before. It wasn't just hygienic, it had something to do with not wanting people to get close to him, never close enough to believe that he actually sincerely cared or allowed them to come too close. He was subtle with those movements, though, and tried not to make a big deal out of it. After a little while the others just adapted to it. They realized it was just one of his quirks.  
  
The funny irony to that was that he didn't like being alone. He made friends readily, gathered the entire Insei program as his posse - constantly he seemed to test himself to see if he could get them to be his friend and yet realize that they would be able to touch him. I think it had to do with thinking - solitude gave him space to think out things, and become too cautious. It was the same with his Go, somewhat - he never spent overly too much time on any one move; if he couldn't think of anything better, he would just play the adequate move. Most of the time, though, it didn't come to that. Most of the time he was more brilliant than any of the other kids put together.  
  
Except for me. He liked to touch me, it seemed. I was the one exception to that rule. He could read palms, learned it from some old book somewhere - the first time I ever met him, that was what he did. He surprised everyone by doing that. It wasn't until a little later that I saw the significance of that action, and it was even later than that that I clearly saw the difference he had towards me as opposed to any other stranger on the street. He was.intimate. He talked freely, his hands coming up from their restful place in his lap to elaborate upon a point or sketch out a funny story. Sometimes I caught myself staring at his hands and completely forgetting his words.  
  
Everything about him was soft, curved - there were no angles in his form or face, nothing to represent the harshness of anger. Everyone had seen the polite young man, a few had seen the laughing eighteen-year old, and only I had ever seen him in the haven of his room, away from all the other elements that might harm him, and run the Go stones through his hands as tenderly as if they were children. The smooth slope of his hair, the delicate arch of eyebrow - everything about him was kind and good, and everywhere he went he brought security. He was older than the rest of us, so I guess it was inevitable that we all drew from that well of experience. The only thing he'd never been was angry, not even when provoked. He tended to lean towards depression instead.  
  
And he was lonely. He told me that, once, very quietly, when we were safe in the heaven of his bedroom, his smooth hands cupping the stones to put back into the wooden bowls. Only he would tell me that, no one else would ever hear that. Selfishly, I preened myself a little - he had told ME his secrets and his inward fears, no one but ME. But I could see it was a wrench sometimes to give up that privacy to me, that assurance that his deepest darkest fears could spread and become common gossip. Somehow, I'd gained his complete and utter trust and hadn't even realized it. He didn't seem entirely sad, though, to give up that one liberty of being able to be completely yourself and never give away any of your personality; I think he felt that I was worth it.  
  
I, on the other hand, always felt completely UN-worthy. His eyes would look at me sometimes, very deep and very wise and very old, and I would suddenly feel as if he were some ageless spirit that was looking out at me. It was his way of telling me that he trusted me not to repeat anything to anyone. Sometimes it would be traded over a room full of concentrating Insei heads; sometimes over a burger at a fast-food place; sometimes fast and furtive, those clear looks that stopped my heart for a moment with their honesty. And he was soul-stopping. For some of the girls passing on the street, that is.  
  
I was close to him, sometimes even in a physical way. He would make tea when I came over, warm and slightly sweet (he liked using sugar in everything he cooked), and untraditional as it was, I liked it. I told him once that when I put my hands around a cup of his tea, I felt if I were drinking in the pain of a thousand years. In response, he put down his cup and then cupped his hands around mine so that they were securely around the cup. I found myself trembling. Then his eyes looked up at me in that strange, looking-through-you manner and he said very slowly and deliberately, "Then I am offering my tea to the right person."  
  
We didn't watch TV much. He didn't have a video game station or even a computer in his room (the only one in the house was in the guest room for when visitors slept over), so we played go most of the time. Sometimes it wasn't playing; we made designs on the board, sometimes borrowing his old collection of marbles to add color. In his room, he wasn't the guarded persona that laughed and smiled only skin-deep; he was serious and thoughtful, and rare to unguarded laughter, though when it came it was quick and sudden and full of happiness. The world seemed to turn anywhere but in his room when he was in it; it belonged to him, and he belonged in it. He could be creative as he wanted to be - outside, he would never have mentioned the idea of using a Go board as a design plate for a mosaic. In his room he could be anyone - a space alien, an ancient wandering soul, or a student studying for medical school.  
  
He lives in layers, and in every new fold I find something new and unexpected. He was at face-value outside: a charming young man with good looks and a good heart. And inside that room, he was no different; his heart was still beating in the left side of his chest, and his eyes still shone with goodness and compassion, but also with knowledge. He UNDERSTOOD, that's what he did in the vicinity of his room. He understood the world and all its corruption and all its beauty, all the damage we had caused and only we had begun to fix. Made of the earth's sad soul, he seemed to be, full of painful love. No, of course he never cried. But he showed his hurt when he was in his room, his eyes full of reflection, his hands wishing they could be capable of changing so many things that were out of his reach. His hands could do many things, he knew, but not everything he wanted them to do. He didn't hate in his room, he understood the anger and let it turn him to pity instead.  
  
I could never do that. I was very different from him in too many ways to be able to as worldly as he was in his room. I only saw what was in front of me, and I judged things quickly and rashly. It wasn't in my ability to ponder things indefinitely and let them sit and fester like he did. When pain was inflicted, I shoved the source of pain right back, as hard as I could. He would just have looked at that person with pity. Sometimes I did the necessary shoving for him because he was doing too much passive resistance. We balanced each other out very well, and he knew this.  
  
It took me a while to realize that I liked having him around. His brief touch on the shoulder, a comforting smile, even one of those heart- stopping stares that he gave me were all welcome. He made me forget the world for a moment and just see him in that one moment, since I was so good at perceiving the NOW and nothing else. He needed me in that aspect, to just look at him and see him as the age-old spirit as he was. His hands, when they touched me they meant something. And finally I saw that and wondered why I hadn't seen it before that. His company was more than welcome - I wanted to have him near me, a presence to look after my back when I was doing something stupid because when he wasn't around, I tended to do some really stupid stuff. I didn't want his dependence on me to end. I wanted to always be there for him, to listen to him instead of some other person - I didn't want to see someone else take my place! This was the genius of his mind, more brilliant than any game he'd ever played on any board: somewhere along the way, he had made me need him too.  
  
I needed to hold his hand, like a little child, even when he gave up holding Go stones. The ageless, wise spirit that he was, I needed his eyes to watch the future horizon for me. I was as dependent upon him as he was to me. How he was able to suddenly turn away from everything that had ever bound him to me both scared and shocked me. Suddenly he was not there - suddenly all of the memories of him, those good and kind memories of his eyes and of his smooth hands became dim. All that could be recalled was a faint shadow of the wonder I had felt when I sat in his realm, enthralled by his hands and by his flowing voice, telling stories and explaining the intricate web that humans wove to deceive themselves in. Feelings - he encompassed that word completely. He felt all the feelings of the world, letting the worries of the world and all its inhabitants flow through him, feeling each one as acutely as if they were his own. And for this reason, he could never get too close to anyone.  
  
He had cut himself off from me! Just when I was so happy! I wanted him to be happy too, wanted him to feel happy for me, which he should have done, letting that happiness become his own. Instead, he had turned away, closed his face to the world. Was he ashamed of himself?  
  
And if that was so, what had he done wrong that I had done right? Now I had in my hands a new title, something that became completely materialistic in the face of his agony. This was not the world's emotions now - it was his own, and suddenly I was the one who had to feel for the world because he was not here to hear its troubles. The taste of ashes burned in my mouth.  
  
His hands, his hands! If only they would hail me again, if his voice would flow again and soothe the rest of the problems out of my head, leaving only that lull of the world around me, time moving-around-but-not- within. With him I felt as if he could do anything, change the world with only bare hands that could help one person at a time. And yet he would make it feel as if it were worth it. I learned the value of small steps from him, the steps towards mercy and sympathy. I learned to see, a little, like he did.  
  
How my own room seemed to meaningless compared to his.  
  
How small and pale my hands were in comparison to his.  
  
How pathetic I was, a little figure in a very big place, with suddenly no way to find where I was at all. I had my eyes, but there was little light to see with; my hands were my only sense now, and even now I clutched at the space before my eyes, searching for that other missing hand that belonged in mine, smooth and ageless. And the gaping hole of all black eternity to search stretched out before me. The only thing I was afraid of now was that despair would take me before then.  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
Sorry I haven't posted anything for a little while. I will get the next chapter of Colors and of Lead up as soon as I can. Brain's been on vacation, you see.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


End file.
